Into the Woods
by Snake in the Grass
Summary: Yuri goes into the woods for a little solo time and gets a rather nasty surprise.


More Vesperia fic. This was written for a community on Dreamwidth, to which I currently posting. The theme was 'Ghost Stories'. Enjoy.

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"Don't go too far, Yuri!" Estelle calls after him. "There's supposed to be ghosts in these woods!"

Yuri tips her a lazy salute. "Don't worry. I'll be careful."

Karol's voice pipes up. "Where's Yuri going?"

"Oh, he's just going for a walk. I guess he's feeling a little restless."

Yuri rotates his shoulder. Restless is right. There were upsides to adventuring--it sure beat out sitting around at home, waiting for something to happen--but traveling for weeks on end without any time to himself was definitely not one of them.

They've been sleeping around a campfire for more than a week, and even when they do find an inn they usually don't have enough gald for more than two rooms.

Things are getting out of hand. Every time Judith smiles at him he gets that low twinge deep in his stomach. God, even Raven is beginning to look appealing, and Yuri doesn't usually go for old perverts.

The woods are misty and dark at this time of evening, and with the leaves beginning to change Yuri can understand where the rumors that it's haunted sprang from.

He walks until he's out of calling distance, before drawing his sword and planting his feet. He performs a few simple artes, loosening up, getting his blood flowing, imagining that he's back in the training yard shoulder to shoulder with Flynn. They'd done endless drills, shouting back answers to their captains and admiring Commandant Alexei from afar. Going back to their shared room in the barracks and doing things that were definitely _not_ part of the lecture on camaraderie they'd been given on their first day.

Yuri's working up a sweat quickly, heartbeat ramping up as he slides smoothly from one stance to the next. The cool air feels good on his face and the exertion, coupled with the way he's been living like a priest for the last few weeks, makes him hard.

He sheathes his sword, sliding down with his back to an old, spreading oak tree. Letting his legs part, he rubs a palm slowly over his cock, closing his eyes. He'll be able to hear anyone coming a long way off. Unfastening his belt, he pulls out his cock and starts to stroke.

It's sort of an uncomfortable place to do this--ground hard, air damp in the autumn mist, but he'll take what he can get. Knowing that bunch, they'll probably manage to get themselves into dire peril while he's gone.

He's fully hard by now, and it feels so good, especially after weeks on the road with no privacy. His breath catches as his thumb brushes the sensitive spot beneath the head. He thinks about the sort of sounds Flynn makes whenever he has his cock stroked, the stream of nonsense that comes out of his mouth whenever Yuri gets down on his knees to suck him. The way he looks with his back arched and legs spread.

Even before this whole mess with the Empire and the guilds began, Yuri had hardly seen anything of Flynn at all. He'd been busy--big, bad captain, that he was. No time for street rats from the Lower Quarter.

Yuri lowers his other hand, delving into trousers to cup his balls, stroking himself faster. The sensation pools low and tight in his belly, and he goes slow, despite the desire to rush. There's no telling how long it'll be before he gets another chance. His thighs tremble as the pleasure begins to mount.

There's a draft--a cold wind brushing over his heated skin. Hr gasps A rush of arousal goes through him, making his toes twitch, his cock throb. His eyes slide open, just enough to see the pearly outline of a face a few feet away.

Yuri makes a rather high-pitched noise of shock that he's glad none of his companions are around to hear.

He searches the trees for the face--there's nothing but leaves and gently swaying vines, the strange, thick fog undulating through the trees. Perhaps that's all it had been.

And then he catches sight of it--the thin, wavering outline of a body. It's a person, a boy, perhaps a few years younger than Yuri, staring out at him from between the trees. A ghost.

For a moment, he's is frozen, heart beating a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He's never seen a ghost before. It just stares, however, a little sadly. Just watches.

Yuri relaxes a bit. He doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, and even if he was, it wasn't as if his sword would do much good against something insubstantial. Despite the shock, his hard-on has barely flagged. It's what comes of going for so long without.

He relaxes back against the trees, wraps his hand back round his cock. "Would you mind giving me a little privacy?" he asks, thumb slipping through a few drops of slick. "You know how it is."

The ghost boy looks at him mournfully for a few seconds, before fading into the mist. Yuri tips his head back, licking his lips, stroking faster, quickly returning himself to where he'd been before he'd been interrupted. He thinks about Judy, how she moves when she fights, how much it hurts when they spar. It makes his cock throb.

He feels another breath of wind over his cheek. The ghost boy's back, and he's brought along his friends. There's three of them now, a man with a winding, misty beard, and a girl, perhaps Estelle's age. They stare at him with the same gloomy expression.

"Do all of you mind?" he asks, exasperated. "It's just..." A few more swim into existence from out of the fog.

That's most likely a signal to stop, head back into camp, wait until they find an inn, but it feels so good, and he's so close already, heels digging at the soft earth of the forest floor.

"Damn voyeurs," he grouses, through gritted teeth. There's a whole gang of them now, ranging in age, all of them looking like they'd been formed out of the mist. They're absolutely silent, but he can feel them, a cold, shivery creeping of his skin, a buzzing at the base of his skull.

One of them is closer now, the first boy, the one with the wide, soulful eyes. He drifts in and stares at Yuri, sending another wave of that strange, tingling sensation over his skin.

He comes in a rush, slick and warm on his hands, tremors running through his thighs and up into his abdomen.

He can barely keep his eyes open, exhaustion settling in on him like a blanket of snow. He feels wrung out and used up, consciousness slowly slipping away into the warm haze of sleep.

The next thing he becomes aware of is Judith, sitting beside him, hauling him up by the armpits. His eyes flutter open. It's gotten darker, and Rita is just a silhouette against a horde of ghosts. She's muttering something in a language Yuri doesn't know, hand raised, the warm glow of aer forcing the ghosts backward.

"Get out of here!" she yells. As one, they begin to fade away.

"Time to get up now, Yuri," Judith hums, sounding infinitely patient. "Before they come back."

His head feels like it's full of fog and his limbs ache. "Wha...wha happened?"

"Estelle remembered something she'd read in a book." Judith slung an arm around his waist, taking most of his weight. "The creatures that live here aren't ghosts. They're monsters. They suck the life right out of you--any sort of powerful emotion."

"That's what they were doing to you," Rita explains, the glow fading from around her hand. "You would've been dead in a couple of minutes."

"You might want to button up," Judith advises him.

Yuri tries for a grin, but the muscle in his face still feel oddly slack. "What...ya don't like what you see?"

Judith glances down. Takes a long, hard look. "No, it looks alright to me. I'm just not sure Rita's ready for it, that's all."

Rita is looking very pointedly in the opposite direction. He fumbles at his belt. The ghosts have almost completely faded away by now.

"Don't tell Raven," he says, as he stumbles back to camp, leaning heavily on Judy's arm. "He'll never let me forget it."

Behind them, Rita laughs.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about him," Judy says. "Estelle and Karol have gone to his rescue. He went into the woods about two minutes after you did."


End file.
